Feeling Small: The Tree of Life

This graphic depicts less than 1% of species thought to exist on Earth.

Some people may believe otherwise, but this graphic clearly shows that we homo sapiens are not the center of this world, we are just a little part of it. And to make you feel even smaller: the graphic represents less than 1% of an estimated 9 million species thought to exist on Earth. The tree is based on rRNA sequences sampled from about 3,000 species.

“The species were chosen based on their availability, but we attempted to include most of the major groups, sampled very roughly in proportion to the number of known species in each group (although many groups remain over- or under-represented),” the researchers write on the website of the University of Texas.

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You Are Significant in Your Insignificance!
That’s what they’re selling you with this graph. This is a ruse used very often by hucksters
and snake-oil salesmen. They offer you the sugar with their ‘bitters’.

Problem: The ontological scope of the graph does not account for all of the aspects of being human (that we are aware of at this time). Of course you’re supposed to know that.

“We didn’t mean it that way.” they’ll tell you…

How many unsuspecting people believe this sophisticated form of lying? Now, see it with ‘new eyes’.